When Volkswagen Group veteran Peter Schreyer – author of the first-generation Audi TT – joined Kia Motors as chief designer in 2006, the Amati was the brand's flagship. That sedan looked like the offspring of a Japanese taxicab mated to a lumpy four-door from the old Soviet Politburo garage in the 1980s. It was a child only a parent could love.
Today, Kia is one of the world's hottest automotive design houses. Since 2009, Kia has earned 10 prestigious red dot design awards and a slew of other honours. A red dot win is a big deal in the design world, a recognized sign of achievement handed out by the Design Centre of North Rhine-Westphalia in Essen, Germany. Success, however, creates expectations. After nearly a decade at the head of Kia design, and with sister Hyundai Motors also under his purview, Schreyer and his team know the pressures of being at the leading edge of the ambitious Hyundai Motor Group.
Earlier this year, the world's fifth-largest auto maker said it would spend $73-billion (U.S.) over four years to grow capacity, build a headquarters and develop vehicles. New factories in Mexico and China are on the books. At Kia, the plan is to renew the existing product line and enter new segments, Schreyer says.
"Our designers are under pressure," he concedes.
It's of their own doing. Kia has made a habit of raising expectations with various concept cars that apparently are only thinly disguised future production cars. In Geneva, Kia showed the Sportspace touring wagon, which is almost certainly the next Optima. As Schreyer says, the Sportspace has a "very realistic chance" of becoming a production car.
At the recent Chicago auto show, a concept version of the Soul called the Trail'ster suggested that all-wheel drive is in that compact's future – using an electric motor to spin the rear wheels combined with a 1.6-litre turbocharged gasoline engine for the fronts. So does better fuel economy with power at all four corners spell S-O-U-L?
No promises, though Schreyer says he is pushing for AWD. "It [AWD] gives it a different character, a different perception … I know people in Switzerland who say to me, 'If this car were ever to come out in four-wheel drive, I would buy it straight away.'"
Then we have the Kia GT from 2011. Jalopnik reports Kia has given the green light to a production version of this elegant and futuristic concept aimed at the Porsche Panamera and Audi A7. It could be in showrooms by 2016.
If the GT goes into production, Schreyer believes it has the potential to become an "iconic" Kia model. Brash stuff from a brand selling barely a handful of upscale K900s in North America.
Still, the brand's quality is on the rise. Kia ranked No. 9 among the 28 brands rated by Consumer Reports in its recent brand report card, ahead of BMW. Kia's overhauled lineup, says CR, looks "exceedingly sharp" and reliability is a "strong suit."
This from a brand that, as Schreyer puts it, was nowhere a decade ago. This lack of a history, he adds, leaves Kia free to be flexible and creative with design – to a point. There will not be a Kia 2.0 design language, he cautions. Kia has established its brand image and will not invent another.
Instead, future Kia models will build on what's there now. With each new design, he says, the idea is "to make things better, not look different" for the sake of being different. "You cannot make progress by just putting lines on a car."
Schreyer left a secure design job at the sprawling VW Group to take a flyer on what was then a risky, pressure-packed proposition with a Kia brand only then-recently out of bankruptcy. He learned that Germany "is not the centre of the Earth for making cars …" that "there are people somewhere else who are quite smart and capable of making good stuff."
At the Hyundai Group, he's found a world of interesting experiences and new ways of thinking. And memories of the Amanti have been forever banished.
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